Bitcoin price (BTC) is back above $11,000 after US regulators approved bitcoin futures trading

Bitcoin rose back above $11,000 today for the first time since Wednesday, the day the cryptocurrency first broke the mark.

Following bitcoin’s stunning mid-week streak, in which it broke through both $10,000 and $11,000 in quick succession, the volatile asset just as quickly plummeted back down to around $9,500.

Bitcoin failed to gather momentum until yesterday, when the US regulator gave exchanges CME Group and Cboe Global Markets the green light to launch bitcoin futures contracts.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said CME and Cboe had agreed to put “significant enhancements” in place to protect customers as it warned investors to be aware of the “potentially high level of volatility and risk” in trading bitcoin.

CME’s initial listing will go live on 18 December while Cboe has not yet announced a date.

Bitcoin reached as high as $11,156 this morning. At the time of writing, it was up 1.37 per cent at 11,008.16, according to Coindesk’s index.

Some analysts have called bitcoin a speculative bubble.

Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM, said: “With everyone’s favourite cryptocurrency having no intrinsic value and being inherently unstable, there are growing concerns over this just being another massive speculative bubble.

“Taking a peek at the technical picture, the $10,000 psychological level seems quite significant. A yearly close above this level could signal further upside; alternatively sustained weakness under $10,000 may spark jitters resulting in a decline back towards $9,000.”

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